


There's No Words (The Moment It Takes to Fall Apart)

by phantomwise (Harlecat)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Ford is an artist as much as a scientist, Gay Stanford Pines, Other, also i dabble a bit into my headcanons on his mental state, hypothesis on ford's childhood/life, it's like i went "huh how can i make my precious children hurt more?" and did it, you can probably read fiddauthor or billford into this if you want in the second part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 07:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7214182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harlecat/pseuds/phantomwise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life does the impossible: it keeps going without him.</p><p>Ford and Stanley are children together, then they're high schoolers together, then they're not together anymore. A following of Stanford Pines, mainly in attachment to his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i started this a g e s ago and i wanted to give you something while i finish up the sequel to tmf, and i want to force myself to have a hiatus so i don't just throw all of that poor fic at you guys at once, and so i don't drain all my energy with it in one go. maybe now i'll be able to work up an editor's nerve?  
> this was originally a one-shot, but then it was 28 pages. it used to be SIX. i sort of just poured all of my soul into it yesterday! love this lil angst baby.
> 
> basically, just me following ford's life, with some of my own suggestions about what's happened and what it's meant to him. hopefully better than it sounds. part two will be up soon.

Stanford would like to draw Stanley sometime. He tells him this when he is small and his stick figures are smaller, when art is more for fun than anything else, and he does a few times. A circle whose smile is missing a tooth, with the word _punches!_ scrawled in all caps beside it. A figure pressed far too hard into the paper, smudged from a sixth finger, that lives its whole life on a fridge.

“I’d like to draw _you_ sometime, ‘Ley,” Stanford says. “I don’t draw enough people.”

It’s true; he doesn’t. All Stanford can find room for in his notebook are tentacles and fairy wings, creatures from Lovecraft’s stories and those epic fantasies that are far past reality. Stanford is the most gifted artist many of his friends (Stanley) have ever seen. He is entirely self-taught. After all, art is not a _real_ career, and he’s never had a decent class at school.

Stanley likes to draw too, but not in the same way Ford does. For Ley, it’s fun, for jokes and gags, but it’s important to Stanford. It’s like dreaming. It’s creation. Stanford sketches out blueprints for the designs he’ll never afford to build, and the plans for the tools he would need to make them come true. He designs cosmic and otherworldly horrors from the sky and sea and soils.

Stanley always points out the oceanic ones. “What do you think, Sixer? Will we see _that_ when we sail the world?”

Stanford always laughs at that.

They take up several sports as children; baseball, soccer. Ford fails at all, and Stanley is terrible at learning the rules. In hindsight, though, he really was pretty good at all of them. Ford gave them up because he didn’t like them and the other kids picked on him; he isn’t sure why Stanley did.

Stanley takes to boxing. He and Ford are forced into it by their father, but Stanley _takes_ to it. He masters the left hook, the swing, the stance. It's clear that this is what Filbrick wants for both of them. Filbrick showers Stanley in quips about boxing and tough guys, hits him on the shoulder, asks Ford when he’s going to take it as seriously as his brother does. He showers Stanley with gloves and brass knuckles when it's their birthday or a holiday, and Ford always gets that same gifts. He thinks that he'd rather draw Stanley, draw the gloves and the knuckles, but he never seems to have the pen or the paper.  So Ford brings home trophies for spelling bees, chess tournaments, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough. He devours books in days and then in hours but it’s not the same as the gloves by the door. They go out to lunch after Stan’s boxing tournaments. Filbrick doesn’t even have the time to drive him to his, but his mother always does.

Stanley takes up fishing over the summer. He pushes their boat into the waters of the beach and sits with his only pole in his hand. He drags Ford along, but Ford isn't really one for fishing. He brings his books and watches his brother grapple with whatever is biting. Now _that_ would be a picture. It’s not boxing, but it’s tough, it’s manly, so Filbrick doesn’t complain.

“Wish we had a lake,” Stanley tells Ford every day. “Lakes are where the _good_ fish are.”

He means the easy fish.

Stanley caught a decent sized fish once, but he didn’t know how to gut it and no one at home wanted to eat it, so he always just lets them go.

“Gotta learn how to gut them,” he always tells Ford, carefully removing his hook. He winds up and throws the small fish back into the sea. “I just gotta learn how to gut them.”

He never learns how to gut them.

Stanley goes out fishing a lot. In the school year, Ford doesn't join him, and they are getting bigger and the boat seems to be shrinking.

High school begins. Stan starts dressing cooler; Ford does not. He lets Stan copy his work and gets chewed out by the only teacher smart enough to notice. Stanley joins the football team, boxes more, starts wrestling. He gets bigger and louder. He goes after girls who scoff at him and giggle behind his back, and constantly assures Ford that they’re both going to be the most chased after by their senior year. Ford isn’t really interested in the girls. He likes to talk to some of the ones in his art class, but other than that. He’d like to join the chess club, or the mathletes, but all the guys in them are so cool and suave, and Ford isn’t sure he’d fit in. All Ford really does is keep to himself and draw and do homework. He’s an excellent student, but bad at class participation.

After their freshman year, Ford gets a job at the movie theater. It hits Filbrick that his other son, the one who actually has a boxing trophy and some talent, is wasting his time off in the ocean with only a stick and some string for company. So after a round of yelling, Stan starts work at a nearby gas station. He suddenly hits it off with Carla McCorkle, talks her into a date, and takes her out for a movie.

“My brother works here,” he brags. Stanley spends a lot of time bragging about his brother.

He and Carla start going steady.

Stanley and Stanford keep fixing up that old boat they found.

Filbrick yells at Stan about his grades. It’s the only time he ever cites Ford, the one who likes art, the one with the dumb books and sci-fi and comics, the one with the wrong amount of fingers, as superior. “At least _he’s_ actually trying! And what about you, Stanley?”

“I’m trying!”

“Are you? Are you _really?!”_

Filbrick yells that Stan can’t get away with copying his brother’s papers forever. Why can’t he just be as good at this as Ford is? If he gets any worse, he might have to drop boxing. Why can’t Stanley be as good as Ford at this one thing? Why can’t Stanley, the one he’s proud of, be good at this? When Ford, who can’t even hold his own, is _great_ at it?

“Look at him! It’s like you’re not even related! He’s a _genius!”_

It doesn’t make Ford feel any better.

Their mother worries about them. He can tell.

Ford finally works up the nerve to join the clubs and teams he’s interested, otherwise, he still avoids eye contact and spends his time alone. Filbrick tells him just how useless his chess club is going to be after graduation. Sometimes Ford’s invited to team meetups outside of practice or events, but he never manages to stay long. Something about all the upperclassmen, with their fancier clothes and witty jokes puts him on edge. And, as much as he likes all of them, he can’t really connect with them. He always feels like some element is missing whenever they talk. He still hangs out with them, a lot, but it feels like he spends most of his time with his sketchbook at home. Stanley always invites him to the football parties too, but Ford is much more interested in the robotics meetings. Stanley trails after him to many of them, when he has the time.

“Look at this one,” he says, sniggering at some creation Ford’s friend probably spent weeks on. “He looks like something from the dump. Hey, he’s moving! Haha, Ford, you seeing this? When’re you guys gonna make a _real_ robot? Think you can make one that _punches?_ ”

It's a little irritating- it's always a joke to him, but then again, he probably doesn't understand a single thing that's going on. They have their individual spaces and lives. Stanley has his team and his football games, Carla, cool hair. Ford has his chess club meetings, and his art projects, so they aren't exactly joined at the hip.

The trouble starts in their junior year.

Stanley adores football. He spends almost all of his time with his team practicing, at home practicing, talking about football, spewing statistics at Ford or Carla He drags Ford to the television to point out players, and screams at the teams. Ford will admit, football is a little appealing. The men who play it are all powerful and have a sharp mind, and he likes it when Stan pulls out his cards to show him, or shows him his favorite players.

Stanley is disliked by almost every single person for his annoying attitude and lack of a serious disposition, but his skill on the football field is his one claim to fame.  He gets tackled, beat up, worse, but he always gets back up and keeps running. His ability as a sportsman has colleges giving him a serious eye, and more importantly, it’s made him hot stuff. The girls at school bat their eyes at him. The guys punch him in the shoulder and offer to pay for his lunch. He’s going to go places. Hell, he’s probably going to be a professional. Ford’s almost jealous; everyone adores Stanley and some of the best schools around are already putting out for him. Stanley takes football seriously. It is his number one priority. He skips class almost religiously, but is on time and ready for every practice.

Then a series of unfortunate events robs him of his shot at being anything. He has a mishap at practice and has to go off field for a while, and Stan spends those weeks away from sports irritated and grumpy. Ford tries to help him with his schoolwork, but he’s hard to deal with, and his grades start to slip. Stan rejoins the team, but his grades continue to dwindle, past his regular low, and to a whole new depth. His attitude doesn’t change, and he starts to fail his classes. Stan is asked to leave the football team. He makes one last desperate attempt at school, but he can barely scrape by, let alone do well enough to play football.

With no more practice, Stan has a well of time opened up, time he likes to spend with Ford. But Ford values his alone time and is also busy, and he's gotten a little tired of Stan complaining about school. He wishes Stan would tolerate the one thing _he's_ good at, but all he does is complain. It’s clear that he blames their school for ruining his life, taking his football away, taking his future away, taking everyone’s love for him away. Ford thinks that maybe Stan should recognize he shares a little of that blame.

Then, that March, Carla suddenly drops Stan for a hippie, in all of one dance. Stan’s mood worsens. His girlfriend of the last few years just wants them to be _friends_. That's too hard for him, Stan keeps telling Ford. He now follows him around constantly, complaining. “I can’t do that,” he said. “Can you believe this? Women. _Men._ My life sucks, you know?” At least now there’s a new villain; this hippie takes up some of Stan’s hatred. Ford can't help but think that, with Stan’s sudden negative outlook, Carla can hardly be faulted for dumping him.

Filbrick yells at Stan almost daily, and it opens up a pit in Ford’s stomach. He wants to know when his son became a failure. Even Ford has a chance at getting out of town, but Stanley’s just going further and further downhill.

“Fat chance,” Stanley says to Ford on the beach. They’re back to working on that old boat; Stanley always drags him out of the house with him when their father goes into a rage. “If he thinks I’m sticking around after we graduate, he’s an even bigger idiot that I thought. We’re getting outta here, right?”

They are. This is something Ford knows for a fact. There is nothing to keep either of them in New Jersey, in their home. Not their younger brother, not their mother, though they might be the biggest contestants. Definitely not their father, and probably not Carla McCorkle. Whether it’s college or the open sea, they’re getting out.

Junior Prom: Ford has to get a date, or else he has to go with Stan or stay home with Stan. Stan tries to win Carla back and fails. There’s a girl in his art class Stan says he should ask, she’s a tiny freshman with large glasses and a stammer whenever she speaks to him, for Ford doesn’t think he has the nerve to ask anyone. His plan is to attend with the chess team group, until their club president turns the tables by landing a decent date, and to Ford’s dismay their plans fall apart. He gets asked out by a sophomore and says yes. At the dance, he looks around for the club president or some of the guys he knows, but none of them notice him. Stan trails after him like a puppy, but it’s not cute, it’s pathetic. Ford thanks God when he sees Carla and goes running off, even though he knows Stan is about to humiliate himself. His date sneers and throws her punch on him to go off in pursuit of someone she's actually interested in. Stan appears like magic splashes his punch on himself.

“Come on,” he says. “Carla and her boyfriend aren't even here, and your date’s a dud. Were you even into her? That's what I thought. Let's just go home. Aren't your nerdy game friends having a dungeon or something tonight? I can drop you off.”

Stan was rewarded a car for his time on the football field. He offers to drive Ford places a lot, and for once, Ford’s actually grateful. The car used to be a painful reminder that Stanley had a future outside of New Jersey and outside of their tiny home, but right now, it’s comforting beyond belief. Stanley drives Ford to a Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons game, but the parents aren't home and the kids are probably all in the basement, so no one answers the door. They go out to rent some videos instead. They don't end up getting any.

They walk the beach for awhile. It's a nice night out. Ford and Stan are both sticky from punch. Eventually, they start back toward their house, and find themselves at the swings they used to frequent.

“Why'd you take that dumb girl, anyway?” Stan asks, sitting down. He starts to swing, slightly.

Ford sits in the other swing, shrugging. “She asked.”

“Well, she was a total bitch. Weren’t you gonna go with those chess guys?”

“They all got dates.”

Stan shrugs. “Should've just gone to your nerd game, huh?”

“At least the night’s working out.”

Stan laughs at that, and swings a little higher. He seems to be in a good mood.

Ford suddenly feels compelled to open up, for half a second, and tells himself it's a bad idea before he starts to talk.

“Stan, you… like girls. Right? Like, you want to date them and stuff?”

“Uh, doy.”

“How can you tell?”

“Um, because they’re hot?”

Ford nods. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.” Stan kicks higher. “What sort of a question is that?”

“I didn't like her,” Ford says. “But honestly, she was perfectly fine. I just didn't like her. I just don't like girls. I've been thinking about that a lot lately.”

“Cause you're a _nerd._ You think way too much. _”_ Stan sticks out his arm to hit Ford, and falls out of the swing. “Maybe if you didn’t, you could go boxing with me or something!”

“Yeah.” Ford bites his lip. “I think it's a different reason, actually. Promise you won't tell anyone?”

Stan sticks up his arm without moving. “Double pinkie promise.”

Ford hooks two of his fingers with Stanley, then pulls his hand back. “I… Well, actually, I think I might be gay.”

Stan looks up. “Like, you like guys?”

“Yeah. Never mind. Let's not talk about this-”

Stan starts to get up. “Well, didn't see _that_ coming. I mean, all your monster comics have pretty _hot_ girls in them. I kind of thought you just wanted to screw a spider lady or something.”

“That's disgusting!”

Stan punches Ford in the shoulder. “Yeah, so being _gay_ or whatever isn't a big deal. You gonna tell dad?”

“Ungh. I doubt it.”

“Don't sweat it. It's not any of his business anyway. How'd you figure it out? You _like_ someone?”

Ford reached up to fix his collar. “I don’t know. Not anyone I have a chance with. Actually, Carla’s new boyfriend is pretty cute.”

“Alright, _that's_ disgusting, but you know what this means, right?” Stan smacked his fist into his palm. “We gotta split them up.”

They never did split them up.

“Hey, you’re pretty good at that art stuff,” Stanley says later, with a Pitt can in his hand, leaning over to look at Ford’s sketchbook. “You should draw me sometime.”

Ford laughs. Normally the request bothers him, but from Stanley, who’s lost so much this year, who’s turned to him every time, it warms his heart a little bit. “I’d like that.”

“You can make me really buff,” Stanley nods, closing his eyes. “Yeah, with a cape. I can see it already! What’re drawing now?”

“I dunno, just some characters, I guess?”

Stan squints at them. “This one’s a guy?”

“... Yes?”

“He’s got a lot of eyelashes. Yeesh, you’re gay.”

“Wha- Guys have eyelashes too, Ley!”

Stan hits him over the head. “Sure we do, Ford, sure. Want a soda?”

“Yeah, okay.” Ford sets his pencil down. Stan returns from the kitchen and tosses him a soda, and opens up a fresh bag of Toffee Nuts. “So, have you been thinking about the science fair at all?”

“Uh,” Stan tosses some of them into his mouth. “ _No._ Jeez, are you trying to torture me?”

“I’m serious! I talked to some of the robotics guys about it last week.”

“Right, the robotics guys.”

“I have this idea. I actually made some sketches earlier. Do you want to see?”

Stan snorts. “What am I, an idiot? Course I do. It’s probably gonna be the face of science genius in a few years or something, right?”

Ford grins and pulls out his plans. “Maybe. It’s a perpetual motion machine.”

Stan nods. “Okay.”

“I know it sounds pretty simple, but it’ll actually be highly complex!”

“Okay.”

“And it’s- are you listening?”

“I’m listening. Don’t get any of it, but listening. Will it punch stuff?”

“No, Stanley. It’ll stay in motion!”

“Like, fighty-motion?”

“No, motion-motion.”

“So, it’ll… move around?”

Ford nods, beaming. “It’ll spin!”

Stan snorts. “Okay, that’s it, the face of science.”

“Well, what do you have?”

Stanley sets down the bag of Toffee Nuts. “I’m thinking it’s sleek, but hefty, know what I mean? I’m gonna call him… Foot-Bot.”

“... Is it gonna… play football?”

“You got it!” Stanley picks the bag back up and tosses a toffee nut in the air, then catches it and swallows. “Hey, did you see that?”

“Maybe you should take this more seriously. It’s a big factor in our grade, and we’ll be applying to college soon-”

“Yeesh, quit talking about grades and college at me, it’s stressing me out. But, I mean, what’s the worst case scenario?” Stan elbowed Ford. “I have to sit around with you in a boat? Treasure hunting? How’ll I manage?”

Ford laughs, but he feels weird. He feels like they just had some sort of misunderstanding, but they didn’t. They just had a conversation. When he falls asleep, he has this strange, guilty feeling in the bit of his stomach. He rolls over and look at all of his medals and trophies, for chess, spelling, robots, math, art, next to Stanley’s for football, boxing, wrestling. He can’t tell what’s wrong, but everything inside of him feels messy and mixed up and he doesn’t like it. He can’t really tell what’s wrong.

He builds the perpetual motion machine. He stays up late to finish it. It’s his pride and joy. He wishes he could’ve had more time with it, but still. Stan claps him on the shoulder and spews praise. Ford helps him weed out scientific inaccuracies in his ridiculous Foot-Bot, so at least it’s somewhat reasonable, if ridiculous. The whole time, Ford’s stomach is turning over, and he still can’t figure out why he feels so sick. The world suddenly seems dark and foreboding for early June.

He wins the science fair. The trophy is tall and wonderful and Stan abandons his post to throw his arm around him and point to him.

“This guy!” Stan grins. “This guy! He’s number one!”

Later that day, they’re called into the principal’s office.

“Not you,” the secretary says, looking up from her nail file at Stanley. _“Him.”_

Stan and Ford share a look, and all of Ford’s breakfast seems to rise up in his stomach. Stan grunts and sits down, gestures for him to go ahead.

Ford goes into the office.

This was the exact moment. This was the moment he left Stanley Pines waiting for him, while Ford moved on ahead.

He feels like vomiting. His brain is vibrating from side to side, in and out of his skull. His breath feels light. He opens the door.

His parents are there.

It feels kind of like his eyeballs are weightless and his legs have lead in them.

They both turn to look at him, his mother first, then his father, and Ford takes a seat.

“You have two sons,” the principal tells them. “One of them is incredibly gifted. The other one’s standing outside this room and is named Stanley.”

He sounds a lot like Filbrick when he shouts at Stan. Ford feels his lungs collapse and looks away. His head’s starting to feel hot. The principal tells his parents how great he is. Then, he hands Ford a brochure for West Coast Tech.

_West Coast Tech._

It’s the greatest school there is.

And it’s on. _The west. Coast._

Ford opens the pamphlet and his head clears.

He’s getting out of New Jersey. He might not even have to pay. He’ll barely have to apply.

He’s getting out of New Jersey.

He’s going to be on the West Coast. In California. At the best school there is, doing what he loves, getting paid to do it, being happy. On the west coast. Far away.

He takes in every word, every picture at once. He actually has a chance. He actually has a future.

He looks up from it at the principal, beaming.

“Your son may be a future millionaire, Mr. Pines.”

Ford feels like laughing out loud and crying and _hallelujah._

“I’m impressed,” Filbrick says, and Ford’s already back to the words on the page. Holy _crap,_ it’s such a good school. He could actually get into it. He could actually afford it. He could actually leave. He turns to his father, whose face seems softer, grinning.

“And what about our little free-spirit Stanley?” his mother asks.

In one instant, Ford becomes the gifted one. He’s his father’s pride. He’s his family legacy.

“That clown? At this rate, he’ll be lucky to graduate high school. Look, there’s a saltwater taffy store on the dock, and somebody’s gotta get paid to scrape the barnacles off of it. Stanford’s going places, but hey, look on the bright side. At least you’ll have one son in New Jersey forever.”

Stanford’s going places!

He stands up and Filbrick claps him on the shoulder. His mother has a nervous air, but he can’t tell why.

He fills Stanley in on the meeting at they walk down to the beach that afternoon. The pit in his stomach is opening back up, but now Ford’s dizziness is a little… great. It’s great. This is great, screw his weird bad feeling. Stanley doesn’t really seem to be listening, he’s watching his own feet hit the cement. They head out into the dunes and Ford gushes to him about West Coast Tech, reading from the brochure. But Stan isn’t paying attention. He doesn’t even make any jokes about how gay California or Ford is. He doesn’t even congratulate him. Ford’s starting to get pretty tired.

Then, out of nowhere, Stanley speaks.

“Joke’s on them if they think you wanna go to some stuffy college on the other side of the country.” Stan turns to look at him, starting to smile. “Once we get the Stan O’ War complete, it’s gonna be beaches, babes, and international treasure hunting for us.”

No, no, no. The Stan O’ War isn’t reliable. The Stan O’ War isn’t impressive. West Coast Tech is! Why can’t Stan get that through his head? This isn’t their dream of getting out. This is a _real_ way out. Ford would love to sail around the ocean with his brother, but this is the real world. There are taxes. Bills. You have to vote and have a place of residence to put on official forms. And Ford has a chance to be something, now.

“Look, Stan, I can’t pass up a chance like this.” He _can’t._ It’s a future. It’s a golden, diamond-studded future, one he’s going to control and live in and enjoy. Stan can sail around. Stan can frequent the western coast and put Ford’s place down as his place of residence instead of their tiny room above a pawn shop. Stan can send him letters and visit him. Or if he wants to stay here, Ford can fly back and see him. “This school has cutting-edge programs, and multidimensional paradigm theory!”

“ _‘Be-boop. I am a nerd robot.’_ That’s you. That’s what you sound like.”

Ford laughs, but Stan’s just- this is a big deal. This is important. Why can’t he be excited? But he’s right. It’s a lot of… stuff. It’s a lot of science. There’s other stuff in Ford’s life. He has art. He has reading materials. He’s kind of thought about comics and writing lately. And he has Stan. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to go someplace they’d get pulled apart? They’ve been together for so long.

“Ah, well, if the college board isn’t impressed with my experiment tomorrow, then okay, I’ll do the treasure hunting thing.”

“And if they are?”

Ford grins and hits him in the shoulder. “Well, then I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country!”

He hopes they’re impressed. He hopes Stan will come visit him.

He goes to head inside.

Stan stays outside.

He doesn’t come back inside.

Ford feels strangely anxious, concerned, guilty. He goes to bed right away. He needs to be well rested.

The next morning, nervous, shaky, he wakes up early, dresses as neat as he can, and looks at Stan, asleep. He touches his shoulder.

“I’m heading out.”

Stan mumbles something about good luck and rolls over. Ford grins.

 

_He should never have said that._

_He should never have said that to Stan._

That’s all he’s thinking as he storms back home, holding the empty bag of Toffee Nuts. He shouldn’t have said that to Stan. That was so incredibly _stupid_ of him.

He should have checked the machine in the morning before West Coast Tech came, he should have fixed it up, he shouldn’t have been so confident, he _shouldn’t have told Stan that-_

He feels blurry and shivery and hot and cold and _bad bad bad_. His nerves have transformed into fury.

He’d stayed up late building that machine. He’d neglected his French homework. And he’d helped Stan with his _stupid_ Foot-Bot and now he wasn’t West Coast Tech material anymore, and there went his future, there went the West Coast.

He storms home and heads straight into the living room where, _surprise,_ Stan’s just playing with a paddleball and wasting the day on the couch watching television. Ford steps in front of the TV.

Stan sits up, grinning at him, ready for good news that isn’t going to come. “Hey, what’s the word, Sixer?”

Everything happens too fast for him to control it. Way too fast.

And then Ford is yelling and holding up the empty Toffee Nuts bag and Stan’s avoiding his gaze and _how_ _could he have been so stupid_ and there goes his promise and his life and his future and his school and his chance and all he’s good at is school and why couldn’t Stanley be happy for him and why can’t he handle being alone like Ford can, why can’t he handle Ford having a life, why is he telling him this isn’t so bad, why is he trying to bring up treasure hunting again-

“Are you _kidding me?_ Why would I wanna do anything with the person who _sabotaged_ my entire future?!”

And now Filbrick is here- and his mother’s coming in- and Shermy is crying- and Filbrick is shouting-

Ford sees real terror in Stan’s eyes.

Then their father’s gone from the room. Stan looks at Ford. Ford looks back at him.

He feels angry and upset and hurt and betrayed and sick.

Filbrick storms back out of their bedroom with a bag. Stan looks at him, then back at Ford, then they’re gone from the room. Ford stares at his mother, then rushes into their bedroom. His stomach flips over.

Their father has packed Stan a bag. Ford looks out the window. He’s pointing and shouting and Stan’s been flung onto the sidewalk. He’s saying something about money and Ford being their ticket out and all Stan does is ride on his coattails which is _true that’s true_ and this was Ford’s future-

He looks up at Ford and shouts something that Ford can barely hear.

He looks down at the pamphlet.

He feels like crying.

He closes the curtains and turns away.

He’s shaking. His shoulders feel tense.

Maybe he should go downstairs. He should talk to Stan. This is ridiculous-

The door slams.

“Fine!” he hears Stan scream “I can make it on my own! I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone! I’ll make millions, and you’ll rue the day you turned your back on me!”

He wonders if he’s yelling at him or their father. The situation sets in. Stan’s been kicked out. Stan’s about to leave.

He drops the pamphlet and runs out of the room.

There’s the sound of tires skidding. His mother looks up at him as he sprints down the staircase and toward the door. He can’t read her expression. The trashcans outside fall over.

Ford reaches the door but he doesn’t open it.

Stan’s gone.

No West Coast Tech. No treasure hunting.

Ford has been liberated from any set path. He can do whatever he wants. The wings on his back make his shoulders heavy. He has everything and nothing to prove, now.Everything and nothing.

Everything and nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all! here's the promised part two. i'd have liked to have edited a bit more, but i was pretty happy with the length, so here you go!!!!!! enjoy ;)

It’s strange. To live your whole life with someone standing next to you, only to have them leave. When Ford was a kid, it was him and Stanley, Stanley and him, the twins, the Stans, always side by side. That was how it was supposed to be forever. There’s no _words_ for this feeling, to have someone stand by you disappear, not dead, just distant, existing somewhere far far away, never speaking to you, just crossing your mind. Ford is on his own now. He’s independant. From everything. Life does the impossible: it keeps going without him.

Backupsmore University. It… wasn’t West Coast Tech. But it wasn’t in New Jersey. He didn’t know anyone there. Everything was new and everyone was polite about the amount of fingers he had. It still creeped them out when they noticed, but he wasn’t mocked or excluded for it. He puts his family photo up on his bedstand, but it makes him feel sick, so he puts it in the drawer. He doesn’t talk to a lot of people. He thinks of joining the chess club, but he has to make a name for himself. His father’s expecting a future for him. Besides, Ford was never the partying type.

He met Fiddleford in his second year of college.

What really struck Ford about him was that the first thing Fiddleford did, upon meeting Ford for the first time, was take off his glasses. Not _his_ glasses. _Ford’s_ glasses.

“Can I see? Here’s mine. Woo _whee!_ Your vision’s actually worse than mine! I didn’t think it was possible!”

Ford looks down at his glasses. “But you only need reading glasses.”

“Yeah, don’t matter how far away the reading material is!”

“Uh, I can’t see.”

“Whoops, sorry.” He hands his glasses back. “Fiddleford McGucket. I’m the school’s kook!”

Fiddleford quickly becomes Ford’s best friend. He isn’t always sure if Fiddleford feels the same way about him, but he’s never been sure if people feel the same way about him. He isn’t like a sibling. Friends aren’t like siblings. They don’t know everything about you. You get to tell them things. They get to tell you things. It’s strange. Ford’s never had to do that before. It’s fascinating to watch a person come together, and Fiddleford is easy to lose himself in.

It makes Ford feel… alright. He can’t remember the last time he felt alright. Mostly, he’s always felt tired and snappy and sick and sometimes guilty for whatever reason. Mostly he just feels far away from everything but Fiddleford makes him feel okay. Every time they hang out, Ford feels like he should apologize after, because he’s just so _bad_ at talking and interacting, but Fiddleford always wants to hang out and do stuff to and it makes him feel like there’s a place for him, somewhere he belongs. It’s good to have a best friend. It’s great. Fiddleford’s all he needs. He’s bright and energetic and positive and can play the banjo. He’s funny and clever and such a magnificent thing to be around. Ford can’t get enough of him.

He finally works up the nerve to come out to him after knowing him for over a year.

Sometimes his phone rings and no one’s there.

Stanford graduates with highest honors and gets his PhD in record time. Fiddleford’s impressed. So is Filbrick. Ford wonders if he should tell Stan but Stan has never made contact with him. He doesn’t even know how to contact him. Besides, Stan never really cared about that school stuff. He asks his mother to pass on the message and his thesis is possibly the greatest of his time.

Stanford goes to study anomalies in Gravity Falls.

The real world is harder than college. You can pace yourself and sleep and do things your way, but you don’t quite comprehend what you’re doing. Ford isn’t really sure what he’s investigating half of the time, until he’s done doing the investigating, and even then he still can’t figure out how it all fits together into the bigger picture.

Everything around him just happens faster and faster. The world seemed slow when he was a child, but now he can barely remember that, he can barely remember the words he spoke and things that happened before now, and now everything is fast. Nothing ever stops.

He starts to keep a journal.

It really helps.

He pours his soul into them. He draws pictures of everything he sees. Take that, Dad.

Ford meets Bill.

Bill isn’t like Fiddleford. He pretends to flirt with Ford sometimes, so they have that in common, but he’s more like the upperclassmen in his old high school chess club, cool, suave, except he makes an effort to get Ford to interact with him. Ford’s convinced it’s a trick, at first. He’s never had someone so invested in spending time with him. But it’s no joke. Ford is the only person in Bill’s life. He’s the only person Bill needs in his life. Bill’s his muse. Bill’s the most reliable person Ford’s ever met. He fills up a part of Ford he didn’t realize had gone empty.

He calls Fiddleford to come help on the portal he’s going to build.

It hits him sometimes that Bill, and sometimes even Fiddleford, remind him of Stan. He doesn’t take things seriously. He goofs off. He sniggers and shows off and is cocky and irritating and Ford likes him but sometimes the similarities are too much.

Bill’s great, though. He always cheers Ford up. He’s always around. Fiddleford is much the same.

And Bill knows _everything._ Ford can ask him anything and get the most intricate and incredible answers.

He’d trust him with his life.

Ford works more on his journals and puts more and more of his heart into them.

He starts to draw a sailboat one day, without realizing. He has to scribble it out. He can’t look at it.

 

He tells Fiddleford the portal was his idea. It _was_ his idea. Wasn’t it?

 

Fiddleford is gone. He’s ruined. He’s probably never going to speak to Ford again.

Bill lied to him. He can’t trust him. He can’t trust anyone. He shouldn’t have trusted anyone.

He’s laughing at him. He’s always laughing. He creeps in when Ford falls asleep so Ford _can’t_ fall asleep and he doesn’t know what to do and Ford finally ends up putting a metal plate into his head and it _works_ , but he still dreams about him, he taps on the plate and teases and mocks and makes fun of him and Ford was such an idiot, he was such an idiot, he’s such a fuck-up, he should never have gone to college, he should never have left New Jersey, now that _stupid_ portal, his idea, his creation, the one he’s slaved over, staying up late, losing sleep, putting everything into, is going to tear their whole world apart. Why the fuck did he grow up and get stupid and fuck up again and again and again?

He needs someone reliable.

He needs someone who’ll come as quickly as he can.

He needs someone who’ll take the journals far away.

Ford can’t sleep. He’s forgotten how to function. He feels dizzy and buzzing and shaky and sick and guilty and guilty and tired and awake and anxious and bad. He feels _awful._

It all keeps happening, fast, moment after moment, with no pause for breath.

Ford calls Stan.

Stan comes.

Stan says he’ll understand.

Stan smiles at Ford. Ford almost melts. He almost smiles  back.

And Stan almost destroys his life’s work.

And Stan doesn’t understand. Of course Stan doesn’t understand.

And the portal gets turned on-

And Ford starts to fly back-

And he- shouts- and-

 

Stanford is good at assigning blame. He feels guilty, all the time, almost, but he can never tell why. He’s good at thinking that if only, if only, if only. He’s good at thinking that if he’d just gone to West Coast Tech. If he’d just gone to New England instead of Gravity Falls. If he’d just done something else. Aimed higher. Seized every opportunity. Had a better life.

Bill is the main object of his hatred and his blame. Stanley often falls second. Sometimes his father and his dean are there too. Ford is so, so good at blaming them. He’s so good at finding their faults.

Stanford feels guilty all the time. He feels like vomiting. He feels anxious. He can’t tell why. It probably doesn’t help that his home is gone forever. He’s never going back to Earth. He’s never thought of New Jersey or Oregon or Backupsmore as a place he’d _miss._

Thinking about them makes his chest feel hollow.

Stanley, too. Stanley is someone he’ll never see again.

If a part of him was aching before, however well ignored, it is torn out now.

He blames Stanley. He also misses him.

He stares at the photos he happened to have on them when he fell through like he’s memorizing them. He is. He is etching every aspect of his family’s face into his head forever. He does not know when he’ll lose the photos. He does not know if he’ll ever see them again. Actually, he does. He knows he won’t. They’re gone. They might as well be dead. _He_ might as well be dead.

He has no hope of reunion in the afterlife, or a chance meeting, no chance of a phone call or hearing about them from a friend. They’re gone. Forever. And ever. And ever.

Sometimes it feels like he’s been cut in two.

Ford draws the picture with charcoal. He rubs it onto paper and it turns his fingers black and smudges a little but it’s real. It’s there. It fills his heart up for a single second, then it overflows and spills and Ford is almost crying.

He looks at the picture. It doesn’t look like Stan. It’s shitty and it _doesn’t look like Stan._ Ford tries to call his brother’s face to mind, the face he sees in his nightmares but is never quite right, the last thing he saw in his home, but he just can’t do it. Something about it’s always wrong. He doesn’t know what. If it’s the hair. The skin. The eyes. The nose. Ford sees him every time he sees himself but he never _sees_ him, he never sees Stan, just shadows of him. The paper gets wets and smudges, and he’s crying. He’s sobbing.

He crumples up the paper, smashes it, tears it in two and crumples it up again, then throws it as far away as he can. He wants to get rid of it. He wants to get rid of everything inside of him. Ford’s life is a trainwreck. He’s just going to have to accept that. He’s just going to have to move on and live a life here.

He wishes he could forget.

He starts thinking about Fiddleford and can’t remember his face either and cries some more.

He tries to hear Stan’s voice. He tries to hear what he tried to say to him the night their father kicked him out. He tries to hear what he was shouting when he was getting sucked through the portal.

But Ford just can’t pull it into his head. Something’s always off or wrong or a mistake.

Ford thinks about high school and books and tries to remember important comic arcs and franchises, the plot of popular movies, what songs he liked, if he was ever really into pop culture. It feels like his life is fading. He tries to remember Carla McCorkle’s middle name and the guys on Stan’s old football team and everything else. He closes his eyes and carves it into his head. Bill is always laughing in his head.

If Stan were here he’d have some joke. If Stan were here he’d convince Ford to get back up.

This is all Stan’s fault.

But Stan was the kind of guy who couldn’t get knocked down. He’d never let Ford get knocked down. Until that time that he did.

Ford’s a really awful person, he decides, after he catches himself wishing Stanley had fallen through instead. Ford’s an awful person. Everyone in his life is awful and he’s awful and it’s all everyone’s fault.

He finally figures out how to keep track of time, but he still doesn’t know how much time passed before then.

He thinks about being a kid. He feels like a kid now. He wishes he were a kid again. He wishes he could turn time around.

Ford starts drinking.

There’s no word for this. There’s no word for everything disappearing. There’s no word for knowing you’ll never see anything you know again. America might as well have been blown up. All of Earth might as well have been destroyed. There’s no word for when you have something with you all the time every day and don’t even realize it, there’s no word for having your feet torn up from the soil you grew in, there’s no words for everything you know being dead, there’s no words for everything is gone forever. There’s no _words_ for this feeling. It transcends his heart, his head. It melds them together in a mix of reckless and reason, survival and erasure, instinct and strategy, and Ford tries to erase everything inside of him that would still be on Earth. There isn’t a word for this. It’s just moving forward, moving on. It’s just continuing. It’s just forgetting and leaving and trying not to want to go back. It’s just giving up and going on.

The days pass slowly, excruciatingly, but they pass. Days turn into weeks into months into years. Every minute hurts and aches and burns but it happens and passes. Ford grows number and number. He winds himself up tighter and tighter and hardly ever erupts. He can finally say, with confidence, it has been a decade.

So Ford does it. He gives up on his home and tries to go numb for good.

It doesn’t always work. Sometimes it does. He doesn’t think about the photos he has on him. He doesn’t look at them. He pretends they aren’t there.

Ford does his best. He tries to fight Bill here. Fight the portal here. He tries not to think about what’s happened to the world on the other side, if Stan managed to take the portal down and hide the journals, or if Bill’s already forcing his way through. He almost wishes Bill would find him, kidnap him or whatever, just so he knew what had happened. Like Bill would tell him.

Thirty years pass.

The time passes so, _so,_ slowly, but then suddenly, it’s all passed so fast. Suddenly, it’s all over. Suddenly, it’s all gone again.

It’d been thirty years. The first exact number Ford’s heard.

That’s what Stan and the two children with him say. And also the other guy.

Thirty. Years.

Ford’s life is _gone_. Stan’s dragged him back, like he always does, and his life is _over._ He’s taken it. He’s taken his name and his house. And he’s _activated_ the portal. He can hear Bill laughing now.

Ford is lightheaded and shaking. He can’t comprehend that this is happening. Seconds, no, it’s minutes now, time isn’t dragging by in that excruciatingly long and painful way- _minutes_ ago he was in the world that would be his tomb, he’d given up, he’d moved on, he’d let all of this world go years ago, he’d let Stanley go years ago, and now there’s children here and Stanley here and Ford thinks he just hit him and Stanley’s getting upset and that man is here too and Ford doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s in shock. He doesn’t understand it. He’s here. He’s… home.

The world has kept going without him. Life on earth has kept going without them.

This isn’t his home anymore.

It’s not just that Stanley has, of course, remodeled Ford’s entire house that he spent his own money building without his permission and turned his life’s work into cheap gimmicks in a tourist traps, although that doesn’t help. Something just isn’t clicking. It’s like something’s missing.

He loves those kids, though. He’s glad he got to meet them. They make him think of better times. He hopes they get the life he deserved.

Still, something isn’t clicking. Stan tells them he’s dangerous to be around. He’s probably right. The world has done the unthinkable. It’s moved on without him. There’s a family living in his house, and it isn’t his. It’s Stan’s. This was the life that was supposed to be his. This was the life Stan took from him. Of course he asks Stan to leave.

He wants to make sure those kids don’t turn out like him.

Maybe that’s why he asks Dipper to stay. Maybe he would have asked Mabel too, if she’d come along. If she’d tried a little harder. It’s not fair of him to think that, he’s sure. When he asked Dipper if it was _smothering,_ he wasn’t just talking about her, though he did remember Stanley’s clinginess in high school, the ruins of his dreams and West Coast Tech, burning in the back of his brain. He’s talking about normal life. School, parents, pressure. He’s talking about _this_ world, because it’s hard to come back to _this_ when you’ve been so far away. Ford is a traveller now, a traveller who lives in one place. He’s seen too much to contain in one head and one world.

Maybe he should have asked Mabel to stay. But he think they might be better apart. He thinks they shouldn’t grow to close. He thinks that might have been the mistake he and Stanley made. He thinks no two people should rely wholly on each other. No human being should rely fully on someone else.

And then the world ends. And surprise, it’s his fault, and bigger surprise, it’s also mostly Bill’s fault, and _biggest surprise,_ it probably wouldn’t have happened if Stanley had just dismantled the portal.

Everything falls apart.

Ford was bad at accepting his place back on Earth, but he’s great at accepting that things are a nightmare.

He’ll fight it, even if he’s doing a shitty job. Even if he’s getting pulled away from Dipper and tossing the journals at him, hoping he can figure out what to do, hoping he won’t be killed too horribly, and he’s humiliated, and then-

He’s waking up and he’s in chains and _this has to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to him_ and _why_ is Bill _singing_ and now-

The kids are here and Stan is here and they’re making the circle, they’re going to do it, Ford’s going to save the world and his family and town- if Stan just gets in the circle-

It’s a retort. It’s not important. It’s just something he had to say. He’s always known grammar usage. He’s in a sore spot with Stan, it just slips out, without him even thinking-

“ _Grammar,_ Stanley.”

And Stanley snaps.

Ford feels guilt and knows why _instantly_. He’s doomed the world. He couldn’t hold his fucking tongue. Fucking-

Stanley springs on him and the kids rush at them and are shouting and-

That’s it, then.

That’s it.

That’s it.

That’s it.

 

He’d already accepted Stanley being gone forever before. He’d already gotten over him before. He’d already made himself numb.

So why, now-

 

Everything hits him like a train. His life’s a trainwreck, and the train’s finally hit him, for _real_ this time. He hadn’t comprehended how big a disaster everything was. He hadn’t comprehended how much of a fuck-up he was. Ford hadn’t realized how badly he’d ruined everyone and everything around him. He empties all of his heart out in one moment; it has not overflowed because it’s fucking empty, he’s sure, and now he’s draining out whatever water remains. He’s ruined everything. He’s going to fix the town, save the world, maybe, hopefully, there’s a chance, but he’s destroying someone. He’s destroying something. The person he shared his life with. The life he used to have. The life he could have had. They could have had. The thing that shouldn’t have fallen apart, but did.

 

Stanford has a picture that’s almost as old as he is.

“Stanley,” he says, reaching into his coat. “This is- I was wondering if- I have some photographs, if you don’t remember-”

Stanley looks at him coolly. “Course I remember you, knucklehead. We were kids together. Spent thirty years looking for you.”

Ford swallows and nods. “Right. I just wanted to check.”

“Never said _thanks_ ,” Stanley mutters under his breath. Ford doesn’t think he was supposed to hear. “Some brother he is-”

“Well, thanks,” he says shortly, and Stan looks up like he’s surprised, and Ford coughs. “For, uh, your time, I mean. Thanks. That’s it. So… bye.”

Ford starts toward the basement, but isn’t really sure why. This is his house. He’s kicking Stan out.

He stops.

He’s kicking Stan out.

Their dad kicked Stan out. He didn’t stop him. He didn’t chase after him. It’d happened so fast.

Now it’s happening again.

Ford pulls the photo out from his coat and stares at it. It’s almost as old as he is. It’s gone everywhere with him. He turns around. He can’t see Stan directly, but he knows what he’s looking at.

Mabel barrels past him, chasing after her pigs. “Sorry, Grunkle Ford! What’re you looking for, Waddles, no _wait,_ the door’s open no wait-”

“Great uncle Ford!” Dipper sticks his head in. “Have you looked at any of those movies I told you about yet?”

Ford shakes his head. Dipper catches sight of Mabel.

“Mabel, hey, have you-”

He runs past him and is gone.

Ford looks back at the photo. The world had moved on without him. It had forgotten him. He was back now. What did that mean for him? What did that mean for the world? What did that mean for the people he’d left behind?

He heads down into the basement to check up on some of his old devices.

He gets a curious reading. From the middle of the ocean.

Well.

 

At least things are working out for Fiddleford. He’s making money, probably going to have a mansion now. He calls Ford right away. Says he’ll have to visit. If the Shack needs fixing up, which it does, he can stay, room with him like old times, maybe. Ford talks to him for hours, and when the conversation ends, he finds his eyes strangely wet, his heart full of sorrow. He’d missed so much. He’d let so much happen. So much had happened. Some of it he could have prevented.

But people were still around him. Fiddleford was still talking to him. He’d called him his best friend. Ford _mattered_ to him.

 

Ford’s always been bad at working up the nerve to do things. Chess club, coming out, calling Stan for help. Going to help Stan himself. He was so bad at that one that he hadn’t done it. Case in point.

He asks if he can talk to Stanley at what he soon realizes is probably the worst time. When they were kids he was always sure Stanley would say yes to whatever he wanted to drag him along on. Now he really isn’t sure. He’s wrecked Stan’s life even worse than his. He’s actually punched him. He’s been horrible to him. He’s stood by while life tossed him around like a ragdoll. Stanley would be justified in cutting Ford out for good.

But he doesn’t.

He looks up at him and smiles.

Ford wants to throw his arms around him and cry.

His life is going to work out. Things are going to work out.

 

They send the kids home, and promise to write. Ford wishes they could stay, but they have a home to get back to, a family in Piedmont, and it’s not like the end of the world. Apparently the kids from West Coast Tech did good on making science fiction into fact, because now video chat and instant messaging exists. Ford can’t believe he missed _that_ bit of news. Neither can Mabel, who asked Ford if he’d FaceChat her, only to find out he had no clue what she was talking about. Now they’re officially pen pals.

Life is working out.

 

“Alright,” Ford says. “You’re going to have to stand perfectly still.”

“Yeah, and what about the squid? Does he have to stay still?”

Ford grins. “Just hold him still.”

“Pssh. I’m trying.”

Ford sets his pencil down. “Try harder!”

“I’m trying hard!” Stan squeezes and drops the squid. “Shit! Fuck! It’s loose! It’s loose!”

Ford nearly falls over, he’s laughing so hard. “Stanley, I can’t believe you-”

“I’ve got him! Fuck, he’s slippery-”

“This is worse than the time you-”

“He’s bleeding! He’s _bleeding,_ he’s- the fuck is this? Ink? What the shit?”

Ford is wheezing. “Stanley-”

“Okay, I got it! I got him, I- oh my god. Ford. Ford.”

Ford looks up. Stanley is holding the squid tight. It’s inked. On his face. His face is black.

Ford throws his head back and just about dies of laughter.

“Ford!”

“Don’t move, don’t move!”

_“Ford!”_

He grabs the pencil, but his hand is shaking from the laughter. “The kids are gonna _love_ this!”

_“Ford!”_

“No, shh! Stop talking!” He sketches it out as quickly as he can. “Alright, shading, shading, don’t move, I’m lining it, nice, nice, okay, getting the ink it, tell the squid to stop moving-”

“Hey, Ford, come over here. You gotta see this-”

Ford props up his glasses and starts over, setting the paper down. “What is-”

Stan throws the squid at him. Ford yelps and hurls it overboard.

Stan hoots and cackles, and pulls off his ink-stained glasses. “Aw, man! You should see your face! It’s priceless!”

“Stanley!”

Stan wipes his eyes. “Shit, I’m _crying._ That was too good. That was _too_ good. You know what this calls for? A yuck-em-up!”

“No,” Ford says.

“I’ll get the book!”

Stan darts inside and comes out with his joke book, which is currently the only object of Ford’s hate. His mostly playful and somewhat joyous hate.

“Alright,” Stan flips through the pages. “Wanna hear a joke?”

Ford shakes his head, almost giggling. “No-”

“My ex-wife still misses me-”

“You’ve already told me this one!”

“Now I have to start all over! My ex-wife still misses me-”

 _“_ Ley!”

_“But her aim is gettin’ better!”_

Ford always laughs at that. Even though it’s terrible.

**Author's Note:**

> part 2 up soon! needs a bit more editing. i'll put a song up for y'all with it.  
> also... why do all of my rambling on-a-whim stories involve pictures as a major plot aspect? (see: that star wars fic i wrote that one time, literally titled 'picture')


End file.
